Maternity pay help!
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If you don't qualify for SMP then you will likely be able to get maternity allowance straight from the government. It's almost the same but a bit less because you don't get the 90% earnings bit for the first 6 weeks.
@Caroline it’s only the same if you still meet the minimum required amount for MA, if not it’s a 90% average of the 13 weeks worth of wages you send off I also don’t know if you can receive smp and Ma at the same time?
I can’t claim maternity allowance because I will be earning my usual wage from my other job
@N 💞 ahh ok. No, you can't have them both, it's one or the other.
@incognito so you'll still be working? I'd seek advice on this as it's only ok in very specific scenarios. You also likely won't want or be able to with a newborn!
OP I don’t think you can be working and receive maternity pay at the same time?
No I’m not going to be working. They’re just paying me full wage for my maternity
I'm not sure that's allowed. I think you need to be really careful here!
Employers can pay what they like for maternity pay? My contract for them is full pay. Statutory is the legal minimum they have to pay if you qualify and you can get that from more than one employer so why would it be a problem with them paying full pay? I just don’t know if I can bump up my hours to get the statutory from my second job or not as I only miss out on the eligibility from them by a small amount.
It’s definitely legal, chances are you’d only get smp from the second job as long as you earn the correct amount during the relevant weeks. How many weeks pregnant are you now?
I’m 20 weeks currently. I just read that they work out an average from the 8 weeks before the 15th week before your due date? So I think if I ask to bulk up on shifts in the next couple of weeks I might just be able to do it? I think I’m going to phone citizens advice tomorrow just to be clear on where I stand with it before wasting my energy!
Ahh yeah if they're doing it as enhanced maternity pay to top up the SMP then, sure. But that's different (on their end at least) than just paying you your regular salary. They have to process it differently. I also got full pay from my company. I got it for 9 months and it was them adding enhanced maternity pay onto the SMP standard amount.
Yea it needs to be an average of about £120 a week during that period I think?
Smp entitlement is calculated between weeks 16-24 of pregnancy. So you’d need to be earning the minimum threshold during that time to be eligible